Q&A -
What do commissioners plan to do with their
leagues if the NFL moves forward with an 18-game season?Week 1111/18/10

Last Week’s Question:

Should I think twice about starting a receiver
if his quarterback is playing for my opponent?

A reader named Mike wrote in with a question that was probably
a little too hypothetical for most of the readers of this column.
The part of his question that got the least attention was this
sentence:

If I had to choose a starter from two wide
receivers who were exactly equal in all ways EXCEPT that one played
on the same team as my opponent's QB and one did not, should I
be more or less inclined to go with the player who my opponent's
QB throws to?

Jason was one of many readers who wrote in with a response
that I think most of us would agree with—even though it
does not take Mike’s hypothetical situation seriously:

The long and short of it is that it doesn’t
matter what your opponent is playing. The point of FF is to garner
the highest score and hope you play against a team that scores
lower. So you should always pick the team that you think is going
to give you the highest score as that is the only thing you have
control over.

To me the only “situational” comes in looking over
your opponent’s team and determining whether you are expected
to lose by a large difference. Under that circumstance, you may
want to switch to another player so long as that new player has
a high enough upside. But the realities are that if you are expected
to lose by a large difference you should be playing your highest
upsides in any case – unless your league has penalties for
low scores.

For those that are expected to win by a large difference or if
the game is expected to be close, just play your best team.

Jason speaks clearly and articulately for almost everyone
who bothered to write in. No one disputes that FFers should start
the players likely to give them the greatest number of points
regardless of who may or may not be starting for their opponent.

That answer, however, doesn’t address the hypothetical situation
that Mike seems to be curious about. It’s easy enough to
imagine a fantasy team with both Brandon Lloyd and Terrell Owens
as receivers. It’s also easy to imagine that the owner of
that team has reason to expect both players to score about 20
fantasy points in an upcoming game against an opponent who will
be starting Carson Palmer as his QB.

In such a situation, Mike seems to be wondering whether he should
hedge his bets by playing Owens (who will presumably benefit from
a stellar performance by Palmer or suffer from a weak performance
by Palmer) or Lloyd (whose performance will be completely unrelated
to that of Palmer).

None of the responses that I received took this situation at all
seriously—perhaps because almost anyone who owns both Lloyd
and Owens will be starting both whenever they are active. Many
fantasy leagues allow owners to start 3 receivers, but almost
all of them allow owners to start 2. That may be why none of the
readers who wrote in had a genuine answer for the hardest part
of Mike’s question.

The dozens who wrote in with a variation on the refrain “always
start your stud” did not have to think through choosing
between Lloyd and Owens because there aren’t many leagues
or lineups in which activating one of them would entail benching
the other.

I tend to use marquee players in my examples because they are
the ones most readers are likely to be keeping up with, but the
only way for me to construct a plausible example for Mike’s
situation is to go to some 2nd- or 3rd-tier players. So I will
imagine a team with 3 receivers in a league that only allows owners
to start 2.

If Mike’s team has to start 2 receivers out of Andre Johnson,
Lance Moore, and Mario Manningham against an opponent who will
be starting Eli Manning at QB; and if Mike’s fantasy projection
service expects 11 points out of both Moore and Manningham in
the upcoming week, then Mike wonders whether the fact that his
opponent will be starting the QB who will be throwing to Manningham
can somehow help him to choose between Moore and Manningham as
his secondary receiver.

I am frankly not sure how “always start your studs”
answers this question, but if I had to read between the lines
of the responses that I received, I think the consensus is that
Eli Manning’s presence in the lineup is irrelevant in the
opinion of most readers. Mike has a hard choice to make between
Moore and Manningham, but he has to make that choice (in the implicit
opinion of most readers) based on what he expects from those receivers—whether
Eli Manning is involved in the match-up or not.

This Week’s Question:

What do commissioners plan to do with their
leagues if the NFL moves forward with an 18-game season?

This week’s question comes from Evan, who is already thinking
about the changes that he will have to make in his league if the
NFL moves to an 18-game season. As Evan himself points out, this
is the kind of question best suited to being addressed over the
summer—and I will return to it over the summer if the NFL
does extend its schedule. However, since this column receives
far more attention during the regular season than in the summer,
I would like to collect a few ideas from readers who are still
caught up in FF so as to be prepared for that contingency. Evan
has already formulated a tentative plan:

My current league has a 13 week regular season,
with a 3-week, 6-team postseason (two 1st-round byes in first
week) from Weeks 14-16. We have 16 roster spots for 9 weekly starters.
I think I would make the following changes:

1. Expand the regular season by one week, keep trade deadline
the same.

2. Expand the playoffs by one week. This extra week will be used
to make the championship and third place matches stretch over
two weeks, letting good teams duke it out a little longer for
the top spot.

3. I may add one more roster spot, or maybe an IR spot to help
owners cope with the increase in injured players.

#1 San Diego over Denver
This has the appearance of a shootout with San Diego having the
top offense in the league and Denver having dismantled the Chiefs
last week. San Diego will be getting back Malcolm Floyd and is
ready to make a run at the divisional title. The Chargers are
3rd in passing defense and 4th in rushing defense. Their Achilles
heel has been special teams, so if they spent their bye week (as
they should have) getting things buttoned up, they will be able
to slow down Denver and put up enough points to win.

#2 New Orleans over Seattle
New Orleans is coming off their bye week, and Reggie Bush will
be back. Drew Brees will take his 5th-ranked passing offense to
Seattle, where he should have his way against the league’s
28th-ranked passing defense. With two defensive lineman hurt for
Seattle, it is hard to imagine how the Seahawks will put together
an effective pass rush. The Saints might show up jet lagged, but
that won’t be enough to even out this lopsided contest.
Whether Bush is active or not, Brees should have no trouble getting
the win for the visiting Saints.

#3 Kansas City over Arizona
What happened to KC in Denver? Did the thin air get to them? Did
they just forget to pack a defense for the trip? At home they
are a much different team as they feed off of the energy of their
fans. The Chiefs’ rushing defense has been poor lately,
but Arizona doesn’t have a runner capable of exploiting
that weakness. Jamaal Charles and Thomas Jones on the other hand,
are licking their chops as they bring the top-ranked rushing offense
home against the 28th-ranked Arizona rushing defense. Expect big
doses of both backs; they may both break 100 yards.

Upset of the week – Cleveland over
Jacksonville
I’m on a 6-game losing streak after correctly predicting
3 consecutive upsets at the beginning of the season. Whether I
am right or wrong about an upset, the games that draw my attention
almost always end up coming down to the wire. This contest could
easily end up the same way. Cleveland has fought hard through
a challenging season, and I’ve been particularly impressed
by Colt McCoy. Jacksonville was fortunate to win against Houston
on a jump ball and won at Dallas the previous week more because
of what the Cowboys failed to do than because of what the Jaguars
were capable of doing. I don’t see this inconsistent Jacksonville
squad winning three in a row—particularly not when the third
game is against a hard-working Cleveland team that is due for
a win. The key to the game, in my opinion, is how seasoned a QB
McCoy has become against pass defenses much stouter than Jacksonville’s.
McCoy’s four starts have been against Pittsburgh, New Orleans,
New England and the NY Jets, so he’ll have a much easier
time throwing the ball against the Jaguars.